Hello, and welcome to yet another edition of Ask Wheels. First,
we begin with a correction from last week. Apparently when naming the
Tales games we've missed since the last one came out over here, I
neglected to mention Tales of Hearts.
I
think
this
probably
wouldn't
have
been
the
best
of
the
three
DS Tales
to localize, given its 2D
battle system and two different versions, but it is a "mothership"
title so I should have included it.
Anyway, this week we have some quick questions
which will require some lengthy answers. This is what we do here in
Q&A though! So let us continue on. We'll have a more positive talk
about Tales this week as well. Anyway, let's get this show on the road!

Oh, you're serious. Wow, that is just too insanely large for this
column, so instead I will throw you for a leap and present you the
brief history of Falcom games released in America. We'll split it into
three eras: late 80s/90s, mid to late 90s, and 2000s. As you'll find
out, this first section will be the longest, but oh well, let's get this
thing rolling. You may find you've played a Falcom game without even
knowing it.

Late 80s/Early
90s- We should start with the Falcom games localized by
Broderbund and Infocom, as some of these were released on the PC, and PC
games were originally Falcom's focus. Release dates for some of these
older games are difficult to find, so they will be in no particular
order. Tombs and Treasures,
which seems to be somewhat of an obscure title, was changed to be more
story focused and brought over by Infocom for the NES. It appears to be
some kind of adventure game with some RPG elements added in, including
combat. Actually called Asteka 2
in Japan, it involved heavy Mayan themes and locales. Next up we have of
course
Ancient Land of Ys,
the
first
title
in
the
Ys
series.
Released for both DOS and the Apple IIgs by Broderbund, the game apparently
had terrible audio, which is a huge negative for a series known for its music.
Japanese PCs at the time had better audio out it seems. Next in this
list we have
Sorcerion,
a
side scrolling action RPG brought over to DOS in the US by Broderbund. Sorcerion is in fact Dragon Slayer V, a series that we've
actually gotten a decent number of games from without realizing it. In fact (I'm clearly going
out of order here) Broderbund released a game called Legacy of the Wizard for NES a
year prior to Sorcerion.
Legacy of the Wizard was another side scrolling RPG
type game where you selected one from a number of different
characters. Each of these characters had different abilities and could
access things others could not. Well, Legacy
of
the
Wizard
is actually Dragon
Slayer
IV! So much for the Dragon
Slayer series ever getting brand identity outside of the US....

OK, now that we've finished with Broderbund and the one random Infocom
release, we'll move on to the console only games. First we begin with an
odd one: Faxanadu. Released
on NES in the US by Nintendo, this game is a side story of the Japanese
only release of Xanadu. What
is
this Xanadu you
ask?
Why,
it
is
in
fact Dragon Slayer
II. I
hope
you're
following
me
so far. Another side scrolling RPG type, the
name is actually a combination of the names Famicom and Xanadu, and appears to be the
original Dragon Slayer game
released in the US without the name Dragon
Slayer. Either Falcom doesn't understand brand identity, or they
just didn't care about US releases. Anyway, Faxanadu, though involving
lots of platforming and adventure elements, included many things
typical of RPGs including NPC interaction, leveling, buying equipment,
etc. and can easily be called an RPG. Moving ever onward, next on our
list is AncientYs Vanished Omens. Released for
the Sega Master System by Sega itself, it's another sub-par port of the
original game in the Ys series. I'm not sure why it has a different
title as the Broderbund version, but it is essentially the same game.

Continuing from there we have Ys Book I&II for the Turbo CD,
released in the US by NEC Home Entertainment. This is actually the
first, and until the DS release of Ys
I&II,
the only version of Ys
II to make it to the US. We've never received Ys II on its own, and give that
the upcoming PSP release of I&II is one package, that trend will
continue. Anyway, regarded by man as the best version of Ys I&II, it contained improved
graphics from the previous games, as well as fantastic audio (finally).
This is actually the first release of Ys
I&II
I really sunk my teeth into, though
years later after
being released on the Virtual Console. It still holds up very well
today, despite the dated visuals/gameplay, thanks to the great audio
and the fact that it actually included some voice acting and animated
cut scenes. Fairly rare for a game back then. Ys III : Wanderers from Ys followed
this
release
on three different platforms, from three different
publishers. It was released by American Sammy for the SNES, Turbo
Technologies for the Turbo CD, and Renovation Productions for the Genesis. I
really hope they didn't translate the thing 3 times! Anyway, Wanderers from Ys pulled a Zelda II
and turned into a side scrolling action RPG that doesn't seem to have
been received all that well by fans. Regardless, it would be the last
Ys
game we would see for some time.

Next up we have some other random games from this era. Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes was
released
for
the
Turbo
CD
by
Turbo
Technologies.
The
sixth Dragon
Slayer game, it was the
first to bear that name in the US, though Legend of Heroes went on to become
its own series. Legend of Heroes is
a
traditional
style
Japanese
RPG
similar
to
those
of
that era. Next up
we have a somewhat oddball title called Brandish, released by Koei in the
US. A dungeon crawler, it was was strange in that whenever you turned
your character left or right, the whole game world instead rotated. It
did find some fans though. Our final title in this era is probably a
little more known, as it was released by Working Designs. Popful Mail was a side-scrolling
action RPG for the Sega CD. It would be the only Falcom game Working
Designs would localize however.

Late 90s: The
Dark Ages- No, literally the Dark Ages. Near as I can tell,
there
would be no more Falcom games released outside of Japan until the
2000s. Granted I think we mostly missed a lot of re-releases and
remakes and such, but still, we missed out on Ys IV, Ys IV, and Ys V which are no small losses. No I
did not make a mistake there, two completely different versions of Ys IV exist, but that's a story
for another day. Why none of these came over is unclear, but we shall instead
move on to happier times.

The 2000s:
Good times Ahead- Though we didn't really start to get every
Falcom release in the 2000s or anything, things would slowly start
coming over again. The strangest release appears to be a version of Xanadu for the N-gage of all things
, called Xanadu Next
which didn't fare too well (like the system it resided on). The release
of the PSP however led to the opportunity for some Falcom goodness to
come over. Legend of Heroes III, IV,
and V made their way over thanks to Bandai (then Namco
Bandai when they merged). However, they released them out of order,
releasing IV as Legend of Heroes, then III as Legend of Heroes II, and finally V as Legend of Heroes III. The
localizations were also terrible, which took a lot of charm out of the
games, which are otherwise mostly generic JRPGs. Despite releasing them out
of order, they did still keep the importing of saves into the newer
titles to unlock bonuses (I believe this involved moving the unlockable stuff from IV
to III since they released those out of order) so they aren't totally
horrible efforts, and given the lack of RPGs on the PSP they probably
found an audience. The next games in the series, a trilogy of Legend of Heroes VI games, would be
released by XSEED next year.

The Ys series made its
return as well. Konami released Ys VI
as Ys:
The
Ark
of
Napishtim
for
both
PS2
and
PSP.
We
also
received
a
mobile
port of Ys I at
some
point
during
this era, though I was unable to find exactly when.
In addition, Atlus released DS ports of Legacy of Ys Books I&II for
the DS. Though not the best versions, Atlus did a good job localizing
them and given it's only the second release of Ys II in the US it was probably a
welcome purchase for many an Ys fan.
Then
of
course,
we
have
the
upcoming
release
of
Ys
Seven for PSP from XSEED, who
will also be bringing over the PSP releases of Ys Oath in Felghana (a remake of Ys III), and Ys I&II Chronicles, another
remake of the first two games. In addition, the original Turbo CD
release of Ys I&II was
brought to the Virtual Console by Hudson.

Last but not least, we have the charming little PSP action RPG, Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure, released
by
Mastiff
games.
OK,
I
think
that
about
covers everything. If you
readers notice anything I missed, please let me know! Thanks for the question
Hito! Maybe something that requires a shorter response next time?
(Thanks to Wikipedia and Hardcore Gaming 101 for a lot of this info)

Yay! Questions not asking for
a lengthy history!

Hey Wheels.

Two Questions, first does Xenoblade have
anything
to
do
with
Xenogears?
And
do you think it will be released here?

Wheels

Xenoblade does
not
have
anything
to
do with Xenogears at
all.
I think they decided to name it
that so the Xenosaga and Xenogears fans would know it's
from
the same developers. Though I'm not personally a fan of any of the Xeno games, they certainly have a
good amount of credibility, and Xenoblade
does look really good. I was hoping
another Japanese developer would do a Final
Fantasy
XII type game, and this is looking like it will fill
that bill.

As for its chances of coming out here, I
think they're pretty good. It's published by Nintendo in Japan, and I
think they have a good idea (I certainly hope anyway) that this kind of
more open-world RPG does well here in the US. We'll just have to wait
and see on this one for the moment, but I really do have confidence
that Nintendo will give it a chance over here. Perhaps even just in
time for the holiday season Nintendo?

What is your current favorite RPG for the Wii?

Sincerely,

Nodal

Wheels

This is a pretty tough question for me. Though I've enjoyed a lot of
what I've played of Monster Hunter
Tri, I got burnt out of the game pretty quickly, and it really
does require a pretty large time investment to get anywhere in the
online component. The single player is a lot of fun as well, but
nothing can compare to the blast that online play can be when playing
with a group of friends. I played a good amount of it, but never got
past the one star quests due to the fact that I could never find a good
group of people to do the urgent quest with me (tried it as a duo with
someone, but that didn't end well). Maybe when I give it another shot it
will move up there, but for now I can't call it my favorite.

Phantom Brave
is another possibility, but considering
it's mostly the same game as the PS2 version (even though I didn't
play
that version) I don't think I want to call it my favorite Wii RPG. Phantom Brave is absolutely
fantastic though, so I don't want it to sound like I'm down on it!

I think I'm going to call a tie between two RPGs on the system, both of
which can be played with the Wii remote alone. Those would be Super Paper Mario and Shiren the Wanderer. Super Paper Mario is a great change
of pace for the Paper Mario series,
and
I
had
a
lot of fun with it. Though the story is kind of the typical Mario
quest involving collecting 7 things (it was 7 right?) it was goofy as
usual and the localization job was quite fantastic.

Shiren the
Wanderer for Wii is not something I ever thought would be
localized. The DS game in the series did not do well for Sega, and
generally roguelikes outside of the Pokemon
ones haven't exactly gathered a huge
audience (google roguelike if you're confused by what I just said).
Anyway, this one is a lot of fun, has a great look to it, easy controls,
and spices things up by letting you have a party of up to three
characters dungeon crawling at once. I almost wish the eventual PSP
release came over instead, as roguelikes seem to work well in portable
format, but any release of it at all is great. Once I finally finish Tales of Symphonia and fire up its
sequel on Wii though, there may be a new champion!

Anyway, thanks for the letter Nodal, please write in again!

More Slimes in our Future?

Dear Wheels,

Do you think there's a chance Dragon
Quest IX, if successful, could influence future RPG
localizations in the industry?

-Eusis

Wheels

This is a really good question, that
sadly I don't think there's a really good answer to. I really hope Dragon Quest IX does quite well in
the US for starters. It really is an amazing game, and I think the open
nature of it is something that a Western audience should be able to
appreciate. I haven't seen any sales numbers, but we can only
hope Nintendo's ad campaign did some good! I never really got why the Dragon Quest series hasn't really
caught on here. I mean I know why it didn't back in the NES dates
(released too late in the NES' life over here), but I thought it would
have gotten more of a hardcore fanbase by now. Dragon Quest VIII apparently
shipped something like 430,000 copies in the US, which is quite
impressive for the series here I think. If Dragon Quest IX matches or exceeds
that I think that would be a very good sign that we'll keep getting Dragon Quest games, hopefully
including Dragon Quest
Monsters: Jokers 2 which includes the tank from Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime.

As for whether this could influence future RPG localizations? I would say
absolutely, if it sells really well. Companies will want to find the
"next big Dragon Quest" out
of Japan (maybe). Maybe that would mean someone would finally realize 7th Dragon has an audience here?
That would nice. The question would be, how good does it need to do for
companies to want to jump on localizing something Dragon Questy? It'd probably have
to be at least a few million, which would be awesome to see a Dragon Quest game sell that much
outside of Japan. I think a nice several hundred thousands in sales is
a more realistic possibility, however, you never know. I don't think
anyone ever thought the Professor
Layton games would be so big here. I really hope RPG fans
support this one though, as Dragon
Quest IX has a lot of neat multi-player features, and it'd be
nice if there were more people to share them with!

Anyway, thanks for the question Eusis, keep them coming!

Tales of Spreadsheets

Dear Wheels,

How is one to figure out the differences between all of the Tales games? Bonus points for making a spreadsheet.

-Adam

Wheels

OK I'll give you you're spreadsheet in a minute (kind of) but there's
one easy distinction to make between the Tales games. There are those
with 2D battles, meaning you only move left and right, and there are
those with a full 3D battlefield in battles. I'm only going to cover
the games available in English here, as in some of the Japan games
there's actually a "third" type, which honestly isn't very good. There's
also "mothership" and "escort" titles, basically meaning main series or
not. "Escort" usually refers to the spin-off and fan type games, but a
few full Tales games are considered "escort" titles as well, either
because of quality (Tales of the Tempest) or being that much different
from the main series (Tales of Symphonia's sequel).
Anyway, here's your madness:

Game

Battle System

Consoles

Main series?

Random Battles

Developer

Tales of Phantasia

2D Style Battle System

Playstation(Fan Translation) Gameboy
Advance

Yes, first title in the series

Yes

Wolf Team, this set of developers went
on to form Tri-Ace

Tales of Destiny

2D Style Battle System

Playstation

Yes

Yes

Tales Studio (still Wolf team at the
time, but since the original staff was gone, we'll call them by their
current name)

Tales of Eternia

2D Style Battle System

Playstation (as Tales of Destiny 2 in
the US) PSP(Europe only)

Yes, though despite the confusion of
the original US title, not a sequel of Destiny. There is a Japan only
Destiny 2.

Yes

Tales Studio

Tales of Symphonia

3D Style Battle System, though unlike
those to come, you can't freely move in 3D. You can only move left or
right based on what target you have selected, which will allow for a
level of 3D movement.

Gamecube, PS2(Japan only)

Yes

No, for the first time in the series
enemies appear on screen as you move around, though they are mostly
indistinct blobs/skulls etc.

Tales Studio

Tales of Legendia

2D Style Battle System

PS2

Yes

Yes (which is odd after Symphonia)

Namco/Project Melfes

Tales of the Abyss

3D Battle System, for the first time
allowing you to move freely around the battlefield in 3D

PS2

Yes

No, and the monsters appear as more
than just indistinct blobs and such

Tales Studio

Tales of the World Radiant Mythology

3D Battle System

PSP

no

no

Alfa System

Tales of Innocence

3D Battle System

DS (Fan translation)

Yes

no

Alfa System

Tales of Vesperia

3D Battle System

Xbox360, PS3(Japan Only)

Yes

no

Tales Studio

Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New
World

3D Battle System

Wii

no

no

Tales Studio

IN CLOSING

Well, that's all for this week. I know this was kind of an oddball week,
but hey, they're oddball questions! I'm playing a lot of Ys right now to get ready for Ys Seven, and of course will be
playing the demo for Valkyria
Chronicles II as well. We've got a lot more great RPGs to come
this year, including Fallout New Vegas.
What
games
are
you guys excited for? Drop me a line!

P.S. Both Ys Seven and Valkyria Chronicles II are nearly upon us! Is
this a good month for PSP RPGs or what?
Also I'll be having some kind of contest in the near future. Stay tuned!